‘I would have come sooner if I’d known,’ protested Bonnie, although even as she said it, she wondered how true it really was. Would learning of Anna’s death have been enough of a reason to persuade her to get on a plane? She liked to believe that it would have. And as soon as she had read the first few lines of the article about Anna’s accident in Tracey’s kitchen, all she could think was that she had to get here as quickly as possible. She had been packed and in a taxi to the train station inside ten minutes.

‘Please come in,’ David said then. ‘Sorry, forgetting my manners. Must be the shock of seeing you again after so many years. You look well, by the way. Did I say that already?’

He had taken a step back and opened the front door a fraction more, revealing a wide tiled hallway and a side table piled high with unopened post.

Bonnie hesitated.

‘Is Evangeline …?’ she began, but David shook his head.

‘She’s not here, and you won’t believe it when I tell you where she actually is.’

Bonnie was about to ask what he meant, when her phone beeped with a message. Recognising the tone as the one she had allocated to Kit, she fished it out of her handbag, apologising to David as she followed him inside.

‘Mission Penguin a big success,’ she read, then gasped as she took in the photo that Kit had sent along with it. There was Tui, smiling broadly beside a large statue of a penguin, one hand waving up towards whoever was taking the photo, and the other clamped firmly in the hand of— No, it couldn’t be! The young woman had chin-length thick dark hair and a neat, rounded chin. She was gazing down at her half-sister with nothing but adoration in her eyes. Evangeline was in New Zealand.

Bonnie came to an abrupt standstill in the hallway, her hand over her mouth.

‘Everything OK?’ David came back towards her.

Unable to speak, Bonnie simply handed him the phone.

‘Oh, gosh!’ he exclaimed, pushing his glasses up from where they had slipped down his nose. ‘Is that Genie? It is! Oh, she looks well. She’s cut all her hair off. And who’s that with her?’

‘My daughter,’ Bonnie croaked. ‘Tui.’

‘Aha.’ David looked again. ‘Yes, Genie did mention that she’d met her. They seem to be getting on rather well, don’t they?’